Anna Karenina eBook

“This way; let us go in here. Don’t
go near the window,” said Anna, trying the paint
to see if it were dry. “Alexey, the paint’s
dry already,” she added.

From the reception room they went into the corridor.
Here Vronsky showed them the mechanism for ventilation
on a novel system. Then he showed them marble
baths, and beds with extraordinary springs.
Then he showed them the wards one after another, the
storeroom, the linen room, then the heating stove
of a new pattern, then the trolleys, which would make
no noise as they carried everything needed along the
corridors, and many other things. Sviazhsky,
as a connoisseur in the latest mechanical improvements,
appreciated everything fully. Dolly simply wondered
at all she had not seen before, and, anxious to understand
it all, made minute inquiries about everything, which
gave Vronsky great satisfaction.

“Yes, I imagine that this will be the solitary
example of a properly fitted hospital in Russia,”
said Sviazhsky.

“And won’t you have a lying-in ward?”
asked Dolly. “That’s so much needed
in the country. I have often...”

In spite of his usual courtesy, Vronsky interrupted
her.

“This is not a lying-in home, but a hospital
for the sick, and is intended for all diseases, except
infectious complaints,” he said. “Ah!
look at this,” and he rolled up to Darya Alexandrovna
an invalid chair that had just been ordered for the
convalescents. “Look.” He sat
down in the chair and began moving it. “The
patient can’t walk—­still too weak,
perhaps, or something wrong with his legs, but he
must have air, and he moves, rolls himself along....”

Darya Alexandrovna was interested by everything.
She liked everything very much, but most of all she
liked Vronsky himself with his natural, simple-hearted
eagerness. “Yes, he’s a very nice,
good man,” she thought several times, not hearing
what he said, but looking at him and penetrating into
his expression, while she mentally put herself in
Anna’s place. She liked him so much just
now with his eager interest that she saw how Anna could
be in love with him.

Chapter 21

“No, I think the princess is tired, and horses
don’t interest her,” Vronsky said to Anna,
who wanted to go on to the stables, where Sviazhsky
wished to see the new stallion. “You go
on, while I escort the princess home, and we’ll
have a little talk,” he said, “if you
would like that?” he added, turning to her.

“I know nothing about horses, and I shall be
delighted,” answered Darya Alexandrovna, rather
astonished.

She saw by Vronsky’s face that he wanted something
from her. She was not mistaken. As soon
as they had passed through the little gate back into
the garden, he looked in the direction Anna had taken,
and having made sure that she could neither hear nor
see them, he began:

“You guess that I have something I want to say
to you,” he said, looking at her with laughing
eyes. “I am not wrong in believing you
to be a friend of Anna’s.” He took
off his hat, and taking out his handkerchief, wiped
his head, which was growing bald.